Dragon Quest is a series of Japanese role playing games created and overseen since by Yuji Horii. The original game was first released in 1986 and actually precedes Final Fantasy.

Those of us in PAL territories had to wait twenty years before we saw the release of a title. In 2006 we got to play the eighth main entry in the series, Journey of the Cursed King, developed by Level 5 and released on PlayStation 2.

Dragon Quest VIII on PlayStation 2

Since then we've been lucky enough to see further releases in the long-running series, with Dragon Quest IX, my personal favourite, arriving on the DS in 2010 along with the Monsters spin-off series, which I believe was a monster collecting precursor to Pokémon in Japan.

Dragon Quest IX on Nintendo DS

The DS is actually a fab system to have if you love your Dragon Quest, as it also hosts really quite excellent remakes of the The Zenitha Trilogy, which are DQ's IV, V and VI in the series.

Dragon Quest V on Nintendo DS

It's actually now possible to play the entire numbered series, with the exception of X, which is an MMO, in PAL territories, as the first three titles along with other entries are now available on mobile devices.

Dragon Quest on mobile

Out right now on the Nintendo 3DS is the remake of the infamously gargantuan Dragon Quest VII: Fragments of the Forgotten Past, a game I'd long since given up hope on seeing it ever make its way over here as it was originally released in Japan in 2013. And that's not all! Early 2017 sees the release of Dragon Quest VIII on the 3DS. There are pluses and minuses with this compared to the PlayStation 2 version. Graphics take a slight hit, but there are new party members, a new post main quest dungeon and enemies are now visible on the map for those who don't like random encounters.

Dragon Quest VII on Nintendo 3DS

There are other games to check out too, such as Dragon Quest: The World Tree's Woe and the Blight Below, a musou type brawler for PS4, and Dragon Quest Builders, a RPG x Minecraft thingy, also coming to PS4.

Last but not least, there's the big one. Dragon Quest XI, coming hopefully in the next couple of years to PlayStation 4, 3DS and very probably Nintendo's NX.

I'm really enjoying VII - it's nice that in some respects it feels like a super-charged version of the DS remake series (it's by the same developer). I'm increasingly not sure what I think about having to re-explore areas for fragments... It is what it is though and I'm very glad it's finally reached us - pleased that the localisation is the usual charming UK-centric stuff too.

Once this is done, I need to finish III, VI and then play VIII next year, then I'll finally have done the 'set' as it were.

Yeah. I have the sound low but I think it is when there's a special 'event' tune playing as a rule. I think the Jap version of this had a fancier soundtrack didn't it? edit: Seems the Jap version did indeed have an orchestrated soundtrack more like 8. Would have been nice to have the option.

Yeah it's a shame we didn't get it, but on the upside they've re-recorded the orchestral score for VIII, which was already awesome, and we are getting that.